Dash and Slice Through Foes in Bushido Bear from Spry Fox

Bushido Bear (Free) by Spry Fox, LLC is the latest game that features our favorite cuddly little square-shaped bears. If you’re a fan of Triple Town or Alphabear, then you must add Bushido Bear to your game collection now.

I’ll admit it — I’m a fan of cute things. I mean, how can anyone not like adorable little animals that are the stars in games? While Triple Town came out many years ago, I didn’t get into it back then, because I believe I was on a match-three burnout at the time. But I was definitely aware of Triple Town, so when I heard that Spry Fox were going to come out with a word game featuring little bears, I couldn’t resist. I became addicted to Alphabear, and even ordered an iPhone case last year that had an adorable pattern of the different bears that you could collect in the game. Even though I haven’t played Alphabear in a while now (the levels got ridiculously difficult for me), I was excited about Bushido Bear when I heard about it a few months ago. Unlike the other two games with Spry Fox’s bears, Bushido Bear is a full-on action game that will keep you on your toes.

Visually, Bushido Bear is stunning, but that is to be expected from Spry Fox. The game sports a gorgeous hand-drawn aesthetic and the bears, like in previous games, all have their own unique outfits and personalities. The colors in the game are fairly bright and vivid, breathing even more life into Bushido Bear. Even the enemies have their own special outfits and behavior patterns, and all animations in the game are smooth and fluid. If you played Alphabear or Triple Town, then you won’t be too surprised, but it is still great to see that Spry Fox has retained their style throughout all of their games, as different as they may be from one another. And since this is an action game with warrior bears, the soundtrack follows the traditional samurai-ninja warrior theme, which I found to be relaxing and soothing.

Bushido Bear features one mode, and that is to survive as long as possible. There are no levels to complete, just endless hordes of enemies to slash your way through. However, each day there will be three different quests that are generated for players to complete, which earns them some nice rewards. This adds to the longevity of the game, since you can’t just rush through every possible quest in one day.

The gameplay in Bushido Bear is simple and straightforward, but it does take a bit of practice and getting used to. In short, circles appear on the arena to tell you when incoming enemies are appearing, so you’ll want to avoid standing idle for too long. Each wave of enemies is different too, so it’s never quite the same thing. To attack, just draw a path for your bear with your finger. Your bear will dash on that path with swords on both sides, slicing up any nearby foe. To just move around without attacking, just tap on the spot where you want to go — this is good for collecting those bonus rewards. The game starts out with the forest arena, but after you complete enough quest sets, more environments become available.

The game continues until you die by running into an enemy or getting hit by their attack (watch out for projectiles). If you have collected multiple bears already, then there will be an option to “avenge” your fallen bear with another one in your cute arsenal. Each bear has their own traits too, such as being slower but harder to hit, carrying big swords, and plenty of others.

As you play Bushido Bear, there’s opportunities to earn gold coins. These coins can be used in the Dojo to purchase upgrades for each of your bears, which means longer sword reach, faster attack speed, or better dash control.

But if you’re looking for more bears and even customizing the trails that the bears leave behind in their whirlwinds of fury, then you’ll have to be a bit more patient. That’s because these require collecting several tokens of each before they are available for you to use. The tokens can be acquired from the Shrine, or you can watch a video and get a free gift, which may have coins or tokens. While this is fairly annoying, it does give you more reason to keep coming back to play the game, at least. And to keep things even more interesting, each bear that is available in the game has their own ultimate special attack that can be activated with certain conditions on the battlefield.

I used to be an Alphabear addict, but now I’m becoming a Bushido Bear fiend. It’s incredibly fun to draw paths and watch your endearing little bears lay waste to their foes, but the variety of enemies means some strategy is also involved, rather than just going ham on the battlefield. Like other Spry Fox games, Bushido Bear looks amazing and has relaxing tunes, and the gameplay is just downright fun. Who knew a studio well known for puzzle and word games could come up with an awesome action game too?

I recommend checking out Bushido Bear if you’re a fan of Spry Fox, just like bears in general, or want something fun to keep you busy. Bushido Bear is available as a free universal download on the App Store with in-app purchases.